I've noticed with newer games that playing a game in a resolution that matches my monitor, I get so much better visuals and performance, my monitor is 16:9, but I was just automatically putting these in a 4 :3 just so I don't have to deal with letterbox.

I been getting lag with rage and Skyrim but putting the resolution to match my monitor gave great performance boost, I just wish Dead island was not letterbox because I really cant stand it, but would enjoy turning the resolution up.

If it is in letterbox on a widescreen monitor then you need to change the resolution I have found. My screen max resolution is 1920x1080 which is actually 16.10 ratio not 16.9. So what then happens with some games is that if it is set to 16.9 aspect ration you will get the letterbox effect instead of fullscreen.

1920x1080 is 16:9. Just divide the first by the second.

Anyway, I always use pillarboxing/letterboxing to play. I can't stand stretching.

And to top it off, I can't do that with my monitor, so I can't play anything that's limited to less than 1024x768 without using an external monitor. Sadly, I don't think amd is ever going to fix that.

The only letterbox game I own is Sonic Generations, and it's a little small, being a 16:9 game being played a 4:3 screen. Pretty odd, but I can live with it. If I even liked Sonic Gens that much, as it just crashes into a awful clusterfuck by the time you reach Perfect Chaos.

Nope, 16:10 would be 1920x1200.

Correct. Score one for Sweden's math education:)

I don't mind pillarboxing or letterboxing in the slightest. My monitor is a shmexy thang, but it's relatively old and is 5:4, so practically everything is letterboxed anyway... but the monitor is huge so it doesn't matter much. I vastly prefer that to stretching anyway. Especially with old 3d games like Doom, stretching gives me motion sickness.

The only time I don't like it is with the 2006 Star Wars DVD re-release, but that's a whole separate issue. Silly Lucas and his hatred of his masterpiece... no anamorphic for me. Here's what it looks like on a widescreen TV. (It looks like a normal letterboxed movie on 4:3)

Not so much (math and physics were my favourite subjects though). Mostly my strange (and at times, annoying) brain that likes to memorise random useless facts like screen resolutions and operating system history, but at the same time can never remember what the hell I promised to do a few hours ago and gets too bored to help finish any of the multitude of projects I start.

Hmm, you and I got stuck with the same model of brain. Sadly it gets less useful with age as well.

To be honest, it doesn't particularly bug me playing in letterbox, nor am I bothered by stretching the content to fill a widescreen view.

I don't mind if its letterbox a little, but when half of the screen is black that's when I get annoyed.

when I read the topic title I thought OP was talking about playing games in the mailbox....

I bought Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy today, but it doesn't allow for widescreen. So I wonder if there is a way that I could play it without stretching, I mean, as letterbox.